Entrepreneurs
The 2 Most Important Things Digital Entrepreneurs Need to Focus on
It remains a fact that over 50% of startups fail before they even celebrate their first anniversary. Thousands of entrepreneurs pursue their dream of becoming successful, yet they can’t even get their idea off the ground. They might have a great idea, an innovative one, an out-of-the box kind, a model which will change the landscape of the digital platform, yet they fail. Why? The answer is simple. EXECUTION. They fail to execute it properly.
As the notion goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It makes it very hard for these entrepreneurs to strengthen every aspect of their business models. If you analyze these failures, you would see one common thing in them. Their POS (point of sale) was not up to the mark.
“If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.” – Ray Kroc
These digital entrepreneurs need to realize that they need to build a great website to deliver their product, or if they are using a social media platform, they need to have an above-average page or a community. So let’s just talk about the two most important POS in the digital world; the website and the social page.
1. The Website
A website needs to have great content. You can’t sell a new concept, if you can’t explain it to the world, but make sure that the content is concise and concrete. Remember those 7c’s of communication we learnt at school? You need to follow them at all cost. You need to explain your point in one sentence. If you can’t, you need to restructure your sentence completely.
Next you need to consult a technical guru while you are buying a domain for yourself. He will help you get a good server, and a good IP, and please make sure it is a dedicated IP as well. A shared IP may be cheap, but it’s going to cause you a lot of problems in the future.
Once you have the IP you need to design your website to match your product. You can’t sell shoes over a website which is designed with a cake template, can you? The design should be able to integrate with the message that you are trying to deliver. The icons, the fonts, the graphics all need to integrate together to deliver one single message.
After designing your website you have to constantly check your website regularly for bugs and errors. Check the load time, there are plenty of tools available on the internet. Anything more than 8 seconds is bad. If your website fails to load, you are going to lose a ton of opportunity. Trust me on this. I learnt this the hard way.
Lastly, you need to get yourself a Logo. For some people it may be a small image, but in reality it is much more than that. It represents your business, it is in fact your persona. So you need to invest some time in that as well.
2. The Social Media Page
If you are an entrepreneur, who is providing services over social media, there are some do’s and don’ts as well. Firstly, you need to get yourself a good brand name, which is easy to remember and recall. Don’t recreate old names or make names which are similar to the ones that are already in the market. While thinking about your brand name, avoid these words at all cost: new, addition, reborn etc.
Next, you need to make sure you do not spam. I repeat. Do not spam at all. One post a day is good, two posts is great, three posts a day is okay, more than three, what are you doing? There is a huge amount of information available on the internet, and you don’t want to spam your users with your images or posts to a point that your valuable posts get ignored as well.
“Social media is not about the exploitation of technology but service to community.” – Simon Mainwaring
Capitalizing on social or cultural events is a must. For example, if it’s Christmas time, you need to design your offers around Christmas; images should reflect Christmas. Now I am not saying that you keep on offering discounts every day. All I am saying is that you need to have a web theme built around the initial concept.
Today’s digital entrepreneur needs to make sure their website and their social page is the main focus. If you miss either one of these, you risk your chances of becoming a successful digital entrepreneur.